Rockmart man seeks help for Highway 278 speed limit

After his family experienced a near miss encounter with a speeding truck on Highway 278, Rockmart local Edward Graves took to city council to voice his complaint about trucks blatantly breaking the law before he offered solutions to the issue.

“I have seen each of our major traffic lights out here ran by trucks,” Graves said. “I’m not talking about them scooting under the caution light, I’m talking about blatant red lights.”

Graves mentioned several encounters with speeding trucks ignoring red lights across various stretches of 278, but it wasn’t until his wife and grandchild were almost hit that he decided to bring the issue to the council.

“The one that brings me here now hit home quickly,” Graves said. “I very nearly lost my wife and granddaughter. She had just picked up our granddaughter at Eastside. She came down to the traffic light and was going straight across. One of the trucks on the eastbound was a garbage truck, and he ran a red light and pulled out in front of my wife. She hit the horn and slammed on her brakes, he had to back up to get out of her way. Now, if she had been a tenth of a second faster, that truck would have downsized my car and hit my granddaughter.”

Graves’ proposed solution comes in the form of amended speed limits. Highway 278 shifts between a 65 mile per hour limit and a 55 mile per hour limit. His idea is to have the 55 mile per hour section reduced to a 45 mile per hour limit to make it easier to pull over speeding trucks and give them better stopping power. The reduced speed limit would also result in a greater safety margin.

“Drop that speed limit down to 45,” Graves said. “Now, any state trooper or law enforcement will tell you that it takes twice as long to stop a truck as it does a car. They’ve got to give a 10 mile per hour buffer zone, so if it’s a 55, that means they go 65- maybe 70, and that’s way, way too fast. Drop it down to 45, and when they go 55, they’ve got a better chance at stopping.”

Graves also touched on the state’s lax traffic fines before closing his delegation, and the council thanked him for his ideas.

“We certainly understand your concern,” Rockmart Mayor Steve Miller said.

What they can do about the speed limit isn’t entirely in their control. The state’s Department of Transportation is responsible for setting the speed limit for state highways. DOT officials then would be required to determine whether or not the speed limit for the corridor of Highway 278 going through some of the busiest areas of Rockmart is too fast.

Graves had previously gone before the Polk County Commission’s Public Safety committee with the same problem, and they referred him to the Rockmart City Council. The hope of Commission chair Jennifer Hulsey, who also sits as the chair of the committee, was that a combined effort from the county and Rockmart might make some headway with state DOT officials.